The days lengthened, and the stranger returned as he had promised. Not every day, for the demands of a hidden kingdom pulled at him, but often enough that the vineyard path became familiar beneath his sandals. The Shulammite would see him coming from afar—a figure against the skyline, staff in hand, moving with the quiet assurance of one who knew the hills as well as any shepherd born to them.
One afternoon, when the vines were heavy with young grapes and the air shimmered with heat, he found her beneath the apple tree that grew at the lower terrace. It was an ancient tree, gnarled and generous, its branches spreading like a benediction over the spot where, her mother had told her, she herself had been conceived in love. The Shulammite sat in its shade, weary from the morning's labor, her basket half-filled with early windfalls.
He carried a small pouch slung over his shoulder. From it he drew gifts: cakes of raisins pressed with wild honey from the combs of the hills, flagons of new wine cooled in a spring, and apples—crisp, fragrant, chosen with care.
"Stay me with flagons," she said as he approached, her voice faint with the sudden weakness that came upon her whenever he drew near. "Comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love."
He knelt beside her, concern in his eyes. "Art thou ill, my dove?"
She shook her head, a blush rising beneath the sun's mark on her cheeks. "It is only this love that overtakes me—like a fever, yet sweeter than any healing."
He offered the apples first. She took one, biting into its cool flesh, and the juice ran like laughter down her chin. He laughed too, softly, and wiped it away with the edge of his rough sleeve. Then he broke a cake of raisins and fed her from his hand, as one might feed a shy creature of the field.
They sat in silence for a time, the shade enfolding them like a secret chamber. His left hand rested gently beneath her head; his right hand drew her closer until she leaned against him, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart. The world narrowed to the scent of apples and crushed raisins, to the warmth of his embrace, to the distant call of a turtledove answering its mate.
In that moment she knew a peace deeper than any she had tasted in prayer beneath the fig tree. Yet with it came fear—for love awakened is a wild thing, not easily returned to sleep.
Later, when the sun began its descent and he helped her rise, she turned to him with sudden earnestness. "I charge thee," she said, though no daughters of Jerusalem stood near to hear, "I charge thee by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that thou stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please."
He took her hands in his, searching her eyes. "And if love hath already awakened of its own accord?"
She could not answer, only lower her gaze, for the boldness of her heart frightened her as much as it delighted.
As he departed down the path, she watched until he vanished among the vines. Then, gathering her basket, she whispered to the listening apple tree the words that would one day be carried upon the lips of brides and mystics alike:
"His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me."
In Jerusalem, Solomon sat late into the night, judging the people's causes with a clarity that astonished even Nathan the prophet. Yet his thoughts returned again and again to the shade of the apple tree, to the taste of raisins shared in innocence, to the maiden whose love had made him, for those brief hours, simply a man beloved for himself alone.